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Chapter twenty
The Devil’s Deal
Three hours later she was in another room at Whitehall facing Sir Colin Cavendish on her own. The room was benign enough, resembling some manner of study. He made her sit on a stool in the middle of the room while he sat opposite at a small writing table, in a plush upholstered chair with carved armrests. He drummed his fingers with one hand while he read over some papers, every so often shaking his head or glancing up at her over the top of his eyeglass, a frown crinkling his forehead into deep furrowed lines.
Lucinda sat as if in a trance, eyes staring but not focused on anything in particular. In her mind all she could see were books filled with hair and Corvacho’s face as he rushed at her with his long and vicious dagger. Far better to stare at the wall and the grain of the timber paneling than to revisit the terrible images she did not wish to see. She had been left waiting so long with nothing to drink and nowhere to relieve herself. Her back ached and a queasy sensation sat like a bad oyster in her gut. She was tired, so tired. All she wanted to do was sleep.
The first half hour after the fight with Corvacho she was still fired up with battle-fever, her blood over-filled with the heat of survival. There is nothing like staring death in the face to fuel a strange euphoria, but it is a very temporary state which swiftly and suddenly collapses. Now all her strength, vitality, and capacity for feeling were completely drained and sapped. The one thing she craved above all else was sleep. That too Cavendish would deny her for his aim was to wear her down. Keep her hungry and thirsty and beyond exhausted until he was sure she had nothing left. Then he would go in for the kill until he got from her whatever it was that he wanted.
She suspected, at the very least, he would demand her silence.
But what would be the true cost? And would she be willing to pay it?
Cavendish put down the papers and rested them next to one of the arm rests. He looked up. She kept staring ahead of her at the opposite wall.
“Never in all my years…” She ignored him and kept staring at the wall. “Look at me,” he snapped. Slowly Lucinda brought her eyes to meet his, too drained to care. “You are my agent, under my direction, and this is what you do?”
“I was under the impression I was no longer your agent. Master McCrae, your nephew, told me my services were no longer required which to me, meant any obligation or service I was under was terminated with immediate effect.”
“So you are a lawyer now as well as a would-be assassin. You nearly killed a Spanish emissary. An incident like this could mean we are plunged back into outright war. “
“He tried to rape me and then to kill me. What was I supposed to do? Lie there and take it for my country?”
“Yes. That is what any other woman, any sensible woman would do.”
“You can’t mean that!”
“Oh but I do. This peace between Spain and England has been months, nay, years in the making, and you have risked it all with your foolish rash actions.”
“What happened to him? Is he in prison where he belongs?”
Cavendish jumped to his feet sending the papers scattering to the floor. “Of course he is not in prison you stupid, interfering shrew. He is at the Spanish embassy being attended by a physician. Fortunately for you it looks like he will live. The knife hit his shoulder blade and did not penetrate the lungs.
Cavendish prowled around the room, so Lucinda returned to staring at the wall. “I would like to go home. My family will be worried. They expected I would only be absent a few hours.”
“You will go home when I say so. If I say so. Do you understand?” Cavendish shouted.
“Yes, I understand. I also have perfectly good hearing.” Being shouted at had the effect of stiffening her spine. “Does that report you were poring over mention that the man you are trying to protect has books and books full of women’s hair, an obscene catalogue of all the women he has raped, one of them being your own niece? I found her hair in a folio he stole from your nephew called The Spanish Tragedy. Is that the manner of man to entrust with national secrets? A man who enjoys raping and humiliating women is among the men negotiating the peace? It is indefensible that he is tended by a physician while I sit here, the latest woman he tried to rape, without food or refreshment or a chance to use the privy for hours and be accused of putting the nation at risk.”
Cavendish turned very pale though he did not interrupt her which suggested that this was all news to him.
“You found Rosalind’s hair in his apartment?”
“So I take it that wasn’t in the report?”
“The report only covers the state Corvacho was found in.”
“Have your people even bothered to search his room?”
Cavendish lowered himself back into the chair. He still looked pale, but instead of looking angry, he stared at her as if she was a ghost.
“You are sure it was Rosalind’s hair?”
“Absolutely. I sat with her the night she was attacked. I slept in the same bed because she was too afraid to be left alone. I am very familiar with her hair.”
“Come with me. You may use the privy.”
She stood up, but it took some time to get her legs moving since she had sat on the stool for so long. He accompanied her down a corridor and waited outside until she was finished. There was a wash basin scented with herbs and petals, so she splashed water on her face and washed her hands. Those small simple acts already made her feel better though hardly overjoyed to go back into that room and face another interrogation.
